Meltdown to Mastery - adventures in family, intuition, and 'next right' choices
I recently learned that the yoga studio I co-founded in 2019 closed down. Although the news re-surfaced some hard feelings, it got me present to the many opportunities and moments of unexpected grace I’ve experienced over the past 16 months. I’ll admit, I sometimes get scared to share. I'm far from a professional writer and it can feel uncomfortable to co-opt precious bandwidth when we ALL have too much information to consume already. That being said, it feels like there’s something here and I hope it offers you new insights of your own.
When I sold my studio in 2022, I felt completely untethered. I didn't have a grand plan (or even a not-so-grand plan). Besides panic and a slight vulnerability hangover, all I had was the glimmer of possibility which lay just beyond each incremental, 'next-right' choice. I was too overwhelmed to write a new ten-year plan. I was too grumpy to build a crafty vision board. I refused to even look at a yoga mat for over a month. Individual, tiny choices were all I could manage. Lunch plans. An email reply. Yellow or blue. A simple yes or a no. Ride the bike or take the car. Over time, these small and seemingly inconsequential 'next-right' choices began to stack up into bigger things. They built into new private clients and new friendships, creating my first online course, a new studio home where I can teach and practice, becoming a lululemon ambassador. Most of all, I co-created On Point Yoga Adventures, realizing our vision of delivering impeccably run wellness retreats that are transformative, inclusive, and down to earth.
You should join us, by the way. Are you on our mailing list yet?
I dove back into learning — Enrolling in meditation and breathwork mentoring certifications I'd been wanting to do. Diving deeper into soundbath. Graduate school to earn an MA in clinical mental health counseling. It's never too late to learn new things!
As for family? I got to choose them. And by choosing them, I stopped taking them for granted and started showing up more often and more fully. We've done a lot adventuring. We've laughed, cried, and discovered new and powerful dynamics. We communicate and love each other better.
But here's my most significant discovery of all….. I learned how to better distinguish between intuition, fear, and delusion. Yes — It's critical to tap into our intuition. I'm a recovering people pleaser. Far too often, I ignored my gut feelings even as they frantically waved their arms, desperate to get my attention. But it turns out that fear also likes to disguise as intuition and, if I'm not careful, will leave me second-guessing literally everything. But it gets even more confusing. Pepper in the stories about not being good enough or lovable enough, as these delusions are also super sneaky at impersonating intuition. Yikes... What's a girl to do? I now take longer pauses to reflect and notice whether fear, intuition, or delusion is attempting to steer the ship. The pause is the key.
So, if you still don't have a well-crafted ten-year plan, it's okay. If your perfectly crafted plan doesn't work out, that's okay too. It's also okay to take a breath and pause as long as you need to. It’s okay to reconnect to your intution…. to go back to school or start a new business in your forties …to choose the people you love.
It's okay to focus only on the next right choice, one by one. While seemingly small, they often stack up into extraordinary things.
